Science Increasing Case for God

Many
have accepted the cultural narrative that "God is Dead"—that as science
progresses, there is less need for a “God” to explain the universe. Yet
it turns out that in our time the case for his existence comes from a
surprising place—science itself.

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
launched in the 1960s, but
silence from the rest of the universe was deafening. As of 2014,
researchers have discovered precisely bubkis—0 followed by nothing.

What
happened? As our knowledge of the universe increased, it became clear
that there were far more factors necessary for life than Sagan supposed. The requisite parameters grew from 2 to then 20 and then 50. The
number dropped to a few thousand planets and kept on plummeting.

Peter Schenkel
wrote in a 2006: “In light of new
findings and insights, it seems appropriate to put excessive euphoria
to rest . . . . We should quietly admit that the early estimates . . .
may no longer be tenable.”

As factors continued to be discovered,
the number of possible planets hit zero, and kept going. The odds turned against any planet in the universe supporting
life, including this one. Probability said that even we shouldn’t be
here.

The odds against life in the
universe are simply astonishing

Today there are more than 200 known parameters necessary
for a planet to support life—every single one of which must be perfectly
met, or the whole thing falls apart. Without a massive planet like
Jupiter nearby, whose gravity will draw away asteroids, a thousand times
as many would hit Earth’s surface.

Yet here we are -
existing. Why? Can every
one of those many parameters have been perfect by accident? The very science now admits that we cannot be the
result of random forces. In fact, assuming that an intelligence created
these perfect conditions require far less faith than believing that a
life-sustaining Earth just happened by accident?

There’s more. The fine-tuning necessary for life
to exist on a planet is nothing compared with the fine-tuning required
for the universe to exist at all. For example, astrophysicists now know
that the values of the four fundamental forces—gravity, the
electromagnetic force, and the “strong” and “weak” nuclear forces—were
determined less than one millionth of a second after the big bang. Alter
any one value and the universe could not exist. For instance, if the
ratio between the nuclear strong force and the electromagnetic force had
been off by the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction—by even one
part in 100,000,000,000,000,000—then no stars could have ever formed at
all. Feel free to gulp.

Multiply that single parameter by all the
other necessary conditions, and the odds against the universe existing
are so heart-stoppingly astronomical that the notion that it all “just
happened” defies common sense. It would be like tossing a coin and
having it come up heads 10 quintillion times in a row. Really?

The appearance of design is overwhelming

Fred Hoyle,
the astronomer who coined the term “big bang,” said that his atheism
was “greatly shaken” at these developments. He later wrote that “a
common-sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super-intellect
has monkeyed with the physics, as well as with chemistry and biology . .
. . The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so
overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”

Theoretical physicist Paul Davies has said that “the appearance of design is overwhelming” and Oxford professor Dr. John Lennox
has said “the more we get to know about our universe, the more the
hypothesis that there is a Creator . . . gains in credibility as the
best explanation of why we are here.”

The greatest miracle of all
time, without any close seconds, is the universe. It is the miracle of
all miracles, one that ineluctably points with the combined brightness
of every star to something—or Someone—beyond itself.